For them, the attack was one too many from soldiers they accused of everything – from incessant harassment of residents to snatching of their girlfriends.
In a short time, dozens of youth swarmed the trailer park, where for hours, they cursed the soldiers, taunted them and their families, asked for justice and demanded they leave the town, witnesses said.
As the number of protesters grew, the demand became even more forceful, with some youth asking that the trigger-happy soldier be handed over to the community in addition to the troops leaving the area.
“The youths didn’t throw even a stone or stick. They were simply insulting the soldiers and asking them to leave the community,” said Yaji Gaav, an indigene of the community who arrived at the scene shortly after the shooting.
Mr. Gaav contested the claim that where Mr. Jirbo used as toilet was part of the Dangote property.
“The impression people who have not been there have is that the place in question is a fenced area within the company. Of course, that is not true. It is an open place. People go in and out of the place without hindrance and people even go there to defecate,” he said.
According to reports visits, the scene. It did not fall within the Dangote complex, and clearly bore the filthy markings of a site routinely used as public toilet.
The siege by the youth on the property continued even after the commander of the military unit, an officer identified as Prince, arranged for the injured man to be taken to Penuel Hospital in Gboko, where he was treated.
To forestall a breakdown of order, Prince summoned the Mbayion community youth leader, Iorwuese Chamegh, and explained to him that a soldier had “mistakenly” shot a teenager, and requested that he helped pacify the protesters.
“When I got there, he (Prince) told me that a soldier made a mistake by shooting a boy in the mouth. As we were talking, our youths were shouting and asking the soldiers to go. The youths neither threw stones nor sticks at the soldiers. It was just verbal attacks,” Mr. Chamegh said.
“They were defenceless; there was no aggression on their part. Even if there was aggression, they were not armed and we begin to wonder why soldiers should be sent to guard private premises when there is no war,” said Sebastine Hon, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, an indigene of the community.
But what followed just as the commander and the youth leader spoke, shook the small town and left blood on its streets.
Mr. Chamegh said as he tried to pacify the youth who had thronged the area, the military commander asked him to leave immediately.
He turned to leave, then gunfire rang out.
“I heard gunshots and saw somebody falling down at my back. I started running. I am not sure Prince (military commander) was involved in the shooting because he was leaving the place on a motorbike just as the shooting started,” he said.
Witnesses say the military, not able to stomach the taunts, went berserk not long after the gunshot victim was taken to hospital, and started shooting at the youth and pursuing them into the community.
It was unclear who ordered the shootings. There is no evidence that the Dangote Cement Company did. But confirmed that the rampaging troops blocked the Gboko/Makurdi highway and advanced deep into the surrounding communities, chasing fleeing demonstrators and shooting at them.
Joseph Akpa Yaji, 24, who witnessed the incident, was shot in the back as he tried to help the only woman killed in the attack. The bullet penetrated his back and exited from the stomach, spilling his intestines out. As he lay on the ground next to the girl he attempted to save.
He played dead to survive.
“I pretended as if I was dead while the girl was still struggling to get up and run away.”
Then a soldier walked close to the two, apparently attracted by the girl’s attempt to crawl to safety, and fired shots point blank into her head, Mr. Yaji said.
“The girl’s brain and blood covered my body and the soldier, who might have thought I was dead, left the place,” he said, his face contorted in anger and grief.
The military would not give details of what happened or how it happened beyond saying that investigations were ongoing.
The police also said investigations were continuing in cooperation with the military.
The body of the slain protesters remained in the open until the evening of that day when the Chairman of Gboko local government council, Nathan Zenda, and other leaders of the town, walked round the town collecting bodies of those killed.
In addition to that of the woman, six more bodies of young men were retrieved. The remains were transferred to the University Teaching Hospital, Makurdi, for autopsy and embalmment.
An outraged paramount ruler of Gboko, Gabriel Shosum, the Ter Gboko II, told PREMIUM TIMES the killings were “one of the highest level of provocations” against the people of his kingdom.
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